damian calls the shots (forthecowl) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-05-04 11:13:00 |
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Entry tags: | catwoman, damian wayne |
Who: Selina and Damian
When: Before Wren turns herself in
Where: Gotham harbor area
What: Catwoman vs Robin
Warning: Violence mostly.
Assassins weren’t that different from thieves. In old tales, the kind that anyone from Grayson to his own guild tried to bore him with, an assassin had to use the same tactics of a thief even if their goals were completely different. Sure, thieves didn’t kill if they could help it and assassins didn’t steal, but that was all born out of superstition and thin codes. They had to seek out the same weaknesses in their target. Find the same shadows. Rely on the same stupid luck. Selina may not have been trained like Damian was, but most thieves learnt from born skill and a good eye. She had enough experience to know that each guarded target had a weakness. A minor, overlooked flaw that if pinpointed with precision, could bring the whole thing toppling down.
There was no point in trying to take the statue while it was still on the boat. Kitty cats would have to get wet and there was a higher chance of dropping the somewhat heavy statue into the murky Gotham water. Taking it after the transfer was less troublesome, but more risky and so heavily guarded not even Damian could get to it with a Wayne pass. No, the best time was to hit right as it passed hands from the transportation boat to some Wayne Co. dock workers. No one knew what was in the mysterious wooden crate that was craftily made to look like another liqueur bottle transportation, so the security was light and late at night. Even Catwoman would have missed the whole party if Damian hadn’t given her a big, fat hint.
The whole thing was a set up and they both knew it, but one had to put pieces on the board if they wanted to play the game. Damian spent a grand total of 20 minutes finding the cat statue, allocating Wayne funds to purchase it and express shipping it at a specific date that was convenient for him. He made sure there was a small window for her to steal the object and that there would be few guards in the way of their game of capture the flag. And, while he’d never admit it, not to her or himself, this whole ordeal was going to be quite a bit of fun.
Around 1am, the boat finally docked and there was some movement on the dark harbor to unload the cargo. Damian wormed his way into being one of the three men moving the crates, wearing a simple grey uniform and a matching baseball cap. The first couple were heavy and obviously took more than one man to move them, but the statue was in a much smaller crate and could be held by one man. Damian purposely hung back in the shadows, hat low over his face as he waited for Catwoman to pounce on the other unsuspecting worker.
The kitty cat knew a set-up when she saw one and, in this case, she hadn’t even needed to see it to know this was a game. She didn’t know if Damian had engineered this whole thing to amuse himself (or her), but she wouldn’t put it past him. She didn’t trust him, either, not when it came to this, and not after stealing the Batpod from right under his feathery nose. It was one thing to steal things when the kitty wasn’t expected, and another thing altogether to do it when a baby bird was already anticipating her claws. But she wouldn’t turn down the challenge, and they both knew that.
She was perched high above the dock by eleven, having already come to all of the conclusions the baby bird expected her to come to. But Selina hadn’t gotten this good, this young by being predictable. She knew what he was expecting, and she knew the smart move (taking the box during the handover). She didn’t know Damian was one of the workers on the dock, but she knew he was somewhere, and posing as a worker wasn’t excluded from the possibilities. She had already counted the number of men on the dock and, while she hadn’t been able to predict the drop off point with precision, she already suspected it would be somewhere chock-full of Wayne security. Shame the kitty didn’t like water; that would have been an easier take.
But the kitty cat didn’t like easy, and by midnight she had already lured the driver away, broken his jaw and left him trussed up and naked with the evening edition of The Gotham Times as a muzzle. Silly boys should know better than to trust kitty cats who promised them things in dark alleys. Men, Selina thought; so predictable. A tug of the zipper, and they stopped thinking. By 12:30, she was seated in the driver’s seat of the truck that was transporting all the heavy Wayne boxes. She knew the load, knew it would leave room for someone in the passenger’s seat and, maybe four men in the back. 5-to-1? She liked those odds. Just enough to be a challenge, but not challenging enough to lose. There was no way she was going to fail the baby bird’s little test.
She wore the same gray uniform and baseball cap all the other workers did, some added padding disguising her slight form. Her short hair barely stuck out from beneath her cap, and she kept the brim pulled low over distinctive green eyes. Selina knew where she came from, and she knew how easy it would be to draw attention on these docks. She felt the crates get loaded into the back of the cargo van, and she smiled as she wondered if the baby bird had given her up for lost by now. She turned the key, started the engine, and banged the outside of the van door with a gloved hand, encouraging the other workers to hurry. In her hand, she hit play on a recording device that the driver had been so kind as to yell and grovel into for her, and a rough, “come on!” resounded from the driver’s side of the van.
Damian’s eyes narrowed as he looked up into the dark sky, squinting as if he were staring into a spotlight instead of the endless, musty night. He had been stood up. While Catwoman liked toying with capes, he certainly didn’t expect her to turn down a challenge. A classic, tailor made one that would have been an enjoyable distraction from all the worries and responsibilities he had been recently saddled with. The other workers shuffled into the back of the van before Damian snapped back to reality and trailed after them. There was too much cargo in the back, so he climbed into the passenger seat of the van and gave a disappointed sigh.
Taking off his hat, Damian tossed it at the dashboard and smoothed his hand over his black hair. Maybe Catwoman planned to take it at a different time? That would mean she wasn’t a good enough thief, a fact that should have pleased him, but could not be more disappointing. Barely looking at the driver, he murmured, “Just drop me off at the gate. I have paperwork to do.” He dropped that dock worker inflection, letting his voice dip back into the aloofness it was known for.
It was unexpected, and the kitty almost laughed. She was so seldom surprised, and yet the baby bird managed it with worrisome regularity. She didn’t say anything at first; she just pulled the van away from the dock, from the added worry of workers that she couldn’t control and a turf that wasn’t the kitty cat’s home. She drove toward the gate, and if he’d been able to see her green eyes, he would have seen thought there, brimming as she tried to figure out the best hand to play based on his unexpected appearance at her side. Getting past the gate was still the best option, taking the remaining workers on between the dock and the drop, in Gotham’s alleys, where she knew the terrain and could grab her prize and scale onto roof as easily as she could walk, could breathe. The kitty cat knew the city (even this modified one) like the back of her paw, and she wanted the win.
But, she wanted the fight too, and letting him off at the gate meant a clean getaway, but it limited the fun tenfold. The kitty had a choice, it seemed; a clean win, or a chance to spar. Or, maybe, she thought as the gate neared, she could have both. She slowed down at the gate, pulled to a stop and waited for him to open the door. The van wasn’t in park, and she was ready to gun it, but it was a matter of biding her time until he stepped out. Once he did, she turned her head and looked at him. “Enjoy your paperwork, Mr. Wayne,” she purred, all cat that caught the robin and mischief in her green eyes. A second later, not even that, and she gunned the van and sent it out the open gates and into Gotham. She was counting on the baby bird to follow, but he might surprise her. If he did, if he sent up an alarm, she’d deal with it; but she was hoping for something a little more personal than Wayne security coming her way.
Damian stumbled out of the van, his balance literally being thrown by the sudden sickly sweet purr of the driver. He hid a grin that was itching at the sides of his lips as he tore off the gray uniform to reveal the red vest and black sleeves of his costume. Reaching into his utility belt, he snug the Robin mask over his eyes and snapped out his grappling hook. The van was already zooming yards away from him, but with two well placed swings he easily found himself back in range with it. The line stretched and slingshot him ontop of the van with a loud thud.
Stabbing one of his talons down on the side of the van to anchor himself, Damian reached down to either crash it or make her stop. It was a dangerous move, but his first priority was to get her out of the van before it traveled any farther into Gotham city. “Hello, kitty cat.” Damian said, voice almost drowned out by the wind as he yanked the wheel towards him as hard as he could to make it spin out.
She only had enough time to get the van into the outskirts of Gotham’s underbelly before he landed with a thud, and she spent that time divesting herself the padding and the worker’s uniform, revealing sleek black beneath. Her cowl was still down, and her goggles were around her neck, but her gloves were on, and that was enough to swipe out at him with her claws when he grabbed the wheel. He wasn’t the Bat, but she still knew exactly where to aim through his vest to earn a hiss, to leave a mark without doing permanent damage. The kitty cat liked leaving marks behind, and her mood had infinitely improved since the baby bird had climbed into the van.
When he yanked the wheel, she didn’t stop the van for fear of the spin out. No, she let it go instead, making the jerk too much for the van to handle. The spin was uncontrolled, and there was only a hint of warning before the van began to tip. By then, the kitty had already engaged the button that would slide open the van’s cargo doors and flipped out of the passenger’s side door. She landed on her feet in the alley, because kitty cats always landed on their feet.
Damian yanked his talon out of the side of the van and kicked off the metal door with everything he had towards a nearby light post. He hugged the pole with the crook of one arm, slowing momentum enough that he landed in time to see the van tip. Once there was sign that Catwoman had made it out alive, he dashed forward in an all out sprint towards the van. He made two quick leaps, first to vault over the van and the second to get some air so that he could make a boot to the stomach hurt as much as possible.
The kitty cat didn’t like it when baby birds came flying at her, and she was used to being the one that pounced from overhead. She saw that boot to the stomach coming just in time to swivel and catch it with more side than belly, to avoid getting the wind knocked out of her and being knocked off her paws. But it still hurt like shards, and it came with a retaliatory, instinctive elbow to the tender knockout spot beneath his chin, and a heavy boot sweep to the achilles. She was moving before waiting to see the effect of the impact, rushing straight at the dock workers, the ones that had crawled out of the van in pain. She smashed two of them together, skulls knocking hard enough to take them out for the present, and she vaulted over them in an exhilarating flip into the back of the van, where her target was waiting. “Come to kitty.”
Damian made an oof sound as he hit the ground, eyes opening to find himself flat on his back in a matter of seconds. She worked fast and if he stayed on the ground for a moment longer, she’d be gone. He rolled to his feet, clicking one talon to his belt as he pulled out a batarang and sent it slicing across Catwoman’s shoulder blade. It was meant to be a nuisance, almost a taunt. The smug, little birdie, annoying kind.
“You’re going to have to do a lot better than that.” Damian sounded unimpressed, like she was taking up precious patrol time. He kept the single talon at his side, ready to strike, but if Catwoman intended on trying to run instead of fight, Damian was ready for that, too.
The batarang found its mark, and it was unexpected enough that she stopped and turned, looked over her shoulder and wasted precious moments when she could be making off with her prize. She touched a claw to the slice in the catsuit, to the red beneath it, and even the goggles couldn’t hide her expression. All oh, really? we’re playing like that, are we?. Her whip was in her hand a second later, singing across the night air as it wound around his neck with perfect precision. A hard yank, and then she was grabbing the smallest box in the van and smashing it at her feet, intending to pocket her kitty cat from the rubble.
He should have seen the whip coming, but it wasn’t exactly a weapon he was trained to counter. Guns were easy, knives were a walk in the park. Whips, though, had the ability to be a little unpredictable. With the hard yank, Damian found himself struggling for air. He grabbed at the whip with one hand, reminding himself that breathing wasn’t a constant necessity. How was fighting Catwoman different from trying to wrestle something under water?
Damian wrapped his arm around the whip and yanked back like they were playing tug-of-war. He made a run for it, taking a moment to catch his breath he grabbed the side of the van, twisted his body sideways and slammed his legs into her ankles.
The kitty cat had a few very good reasons for using the whip as her primary weapon, and the fact that no one knew how to wield or defend against one was at the very top of the list. While he struggled for air, she tugged the statue into the messenger bag she had slung across her torso for that very purpose, and she looked up as he yanked back. The run was a smart choice, not one most people thought of; run toward the whip-holder, not away. She smiled, plump lips and approval she didn’t bother hiding. Not bad for a feathered little thing. She was about to scale the tipped van when he slammed his legs into her ankles, and she crumbled with a hiss.
It took a less than a second for her to recover, to deliver a solid kick, even as she snapped the whip around his ankles to send him down. Despite the limping pain in her ankles, she climbed to the top of the van and used her whip to anchor to a fire escape. Up. If she could just get on the roofs, she could disappear. And disappearing? The kitty cat would count that as a win.
Now, kitty cats had a way of getting to places that birds and bats couldn’t soar, but trying to out fly them was a completely different story. Damian kneeled, clicking his second talon back onto his belt and brought the grappling hook up, holding it out in a straight line as he aimed his shot. He waited just long enough for her to make the climb and then fired. The van suddenly rocked as the weight of the little bird lifted off it and landed on the fire escape with a heavy momentum that nearly knocked it off the building all together. There was nothing graceful about what this Robin did. It was efficient and brutal. That was all he needed.
After taking a second to regain a certain amount of balance, Damian grabbed Catwoman by the shoulders and pushed her against the brick wall of the building. He wasn’t using all of his strength, even if his trained, blank expression didn’t seem to admit to that. He didn’t actually want to hurt her. Just enough to pin her and prove he won. “Hand over the statue, Selina.”
The kitty cat wasn’t going to just hand over her prize, and she smiled at the fact that he thought she would, that he thought he’d won - just like that. Maybe she’d have to go home and lick her wounds after this but, if she had her way, she’d be licking her wounds with a little cat statue on her mantle. No, baby bird, it wasn’t going to be that easy. She should have realized they were both impossibly stubborn, and that neither of them would just concede, not as long as they could both stand. Well, maybe she did realize it; she just didn’t care.
And the kitty cat had no problem playing dirty. “Do you really think that’ll get you what you want, Damian?” she asked, a smile, as if she didn’t mind being pinned to the wall in the slightest. She didn’t fight against him, she just leaned close enough to trail her lips against his jaw and then whisper in his ear. “That isn’t how it works, baby bird,” she purred, an expert press of curves against him, and she was counting on that being a new enough experience to throw him off. If not, the knee to the groin that followed would surely to the trick.
Catwoman was one of the worst and best things about being eighteen years old. He had stubbornly denied any sort of attraction he had towards her, thinking that he could remain asexual for the rest of his life in pursuit of being a better superhero. But, any belief that it was possible drained when she used her body against him. In what was probably only a few seconds, Damian could map out every single word, move and touch from the moment he pinned her to the wall. It was impossible to fight back, to roll his eyes, to do anything Damian Wayne was known for. He just froze in place and wished he was back in the cave working on electronic safety devices.
Just as he was starting to like the trace of her lips around his face, the blow to his groin changed everything. A shock of red, deep pain pulsed through his body and he fell back, holding onto the railing as his legs turned into wet sand. Damian had honestly thought he was better than someone who could be so easily seduced, so easily fooled and it weighed just as heavy as this new, cursed pain. He gave her a look that seemed more confused than angry and tumbled over the side of the fire escape. For a moment, it would have seemed like he had just given up completely and fell onto the Gotham street below, but that familiar snap of a grappling hook told her he was just retreating. She could keep that stupid statue, as far as he was concerned.
Kitty cat = 1. Damian Wayne = 0. And Selina felt a little bad about it. That is, until she panicked slightly about him falling to his death, which she reasoned was a perfectionally rational concern on a practical level; killing the baby bird wouldn’t go over well with the Bat. The kitty cat wasn’t personally concerned. Not at all. She had moved forward quickly during the “supposed” free fall, knees on the edge of the escape’s railing and whip ready to grab onto something so she could swing herself after him. But then the grappling hook hissed, and she sat back and grinned.
Selina did like winning. She was gone within seconds, over Gotham’s rooftops and as sore and bruised as a kitty cat could be. It was a wonderful feeling.